The District Court of The Hague (Netherlands) has just confirmed that the $9.5 billion Ecuadorian judgment against Chevron CVX-1% for alleged pollution in the Lago Agrio region was the product of fraud and corruption by the plaintiffs’ legal team, including bribery of the presiding judge and even ghostwriting of his judgment. [The fraud and corruption have been described in detail in many of my previous columns.] The Hague court upheld a 2018 arbitral award in Chevron’s favor that was issued by an international tribunal under the auspices of the Permanent Court of Arbitrations. That award held that the corrupt judgment against Chevron was unenforceable under international law. [The judgment has never been repudiated in Ecuadorean courts and is still enforceable there, but Chevron has no assets in Ecuador.]
To read the full article on Forbes, click here.
